Kathryn Bigelow: Torture part of ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ story

Film Director Kathryn Bigelow said in a column published Wednesday that she’s a “pacifist” who opposes torture, this as critics say her controversial film “Zero Dark Thirty” about the raid to kill Osama Bin Laden endorses torture by concluding the tactics led to intelligence.

“As a lifelong pacifist, I support all protests against the use of torture, and, quite simply, inhumane treatment of any kind,” Bigelow wrote in Wednesday’s Los Angeles Times.

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She continued: “But I do wonder if some of the sentiments alternately expressed about the film might be more appropriately directed at those who instituted and ordered these U.S. policies, as opposed to a motion picture that brings the story to the screen.”

The film’s critics, including Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) and acting CIA Director Michael Morell, say the film endorses torture by showing that it led to intelligence.

Bigelow — whom the Academy Awards snubbed in the Oscars’ Best Director category — wrote that depiction is not an endorsement, reiterating some of her recent public remarks.

“Those of us who work in the arts know that depiction is not endorsement. If it was, no artist would be able to paint inhumane practices, no author could write about them, and no filmmaker could delve into the thorny subjects of our time,” she wrote.

Earlier in the piece, she wrote: “I think Osama bin Laden was found due to ingenious detective work. Torture was, however, as we all know, employed in the early years of the hunt. That doesn’t mean it was the key to finding Bin Laden. It means it is a part of the story we couldn’t ignore. War, obviously, isn’t pretty, and we were not interested in portraying this military action as free of moral consequences.”

The Senate launched a probe earlier this month how the filmmakers got their information and whether they had inappropriate access to confidential information.